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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Ken Kesey

Analysis of Major Characters

Part I

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.

Women as Castrators

With the exception of the prostitutes, who are portrayed
as good, the women in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are
uniformly threatening and terrifying figures. Bromden, the narrator,
and McMurphy, the protagonist, both tend to describe the suffering
of the mental patients as a matter of emasculation or castration
at the hands of Nurse Ratched and the hospital supervisor, who is
also a woman. The fear of women is one of the novel’s most central
features. The male characters seem to agree with Harding, who complains,
“We are victims of a matriarchy here.”

Indeed, most of the male patients have been damaged by
relationships with overpowering women. For instance, Bromden’s mother
is portrayed as a castrating woman; her husband took her last name,
and she turned a big, strong chief into a small, weak alcoholic.
According to Bromden, she built herself up emotionally, becoming
bigger than either he or his father, by constantly putting them
down. Similarly, Billy Bibbit’s mother treats him like an infant and
does not allow him to develop sexually. Through sex with Candy,
Billy briefly regains his confidence. It is no coincidence that this
act, which symbolically resurrects his manhood, also literally introduces
his penis to sexual activity. Thus, his manhood—in both senses—returns
until Ratched takes it away by threatening to tell his mother and
driving him to commit suicide.

More explicit images of and references to castration
appear later in the novel, cementing Kesey’s idea of emasculation
by the frigid nurse. When Rawler, a patient in the Disturbed ward,
commits suicide by cutting off his own testicles, Bromden remarks
that “all the guy had to do was wait,” implying that the institution
itself would have castrated him in the long run. The hospital, run
by women, treats only male patients, showing how women have the
ability to emasculate even the most masculine of men. Finally, near
the end of the novel, after McMurphy has already received three
shock treatments that do not seem to have had an effect on him,
Nurse Ratched suggests taking more drastic measures: “an operation.”
She means, of course, a lobotomy, but McMurphy beats her to the
punch by joking about castration. Both operations remove a man’s
individuality, freedom, and ability for sexual expression. Kesey
portrays the two operations as symbolically the same.

Society’s Destruction of Natural Impulses

Kesey uses mechanical imagery to represent modern society
and biological imagery to represent nature. By means of mechanisms and
machines, society gains control of and suppresses individuality and
natural impulses. The hospital, representative of society at large,
is decidedly unnatural: the aides and Nurse Ratched are described
as being made of motley machine parts. In Chief Bromden’s dream,
when Blastic is disemboweled, rust, not blood, spills out, revealing
that the hospital destroyed not only his life but his humanity as
well. Bromden’s realization that the hospital treats human beings
in an unnatural fashion, and his concomitant growing self-awareness,
occur as a surrounding fog dissipates. It is no surprise that Bromden
believes this fog is a construction of machines controlled by the
hospital and by Nurse Ratched.

Bromden, as the son of an Indian chief, is a combination
of pure, natural individuality and a spirit almost completely subverted
by mechanized society. Early on, he had free will, and he can remember and
describe going hunting in the woods with his relatives and the way
they spear salmon. The government, however, eventually succeeds
in paying off the tribe so their fishing area can be converted into
a profitable hydroelectric dam. The tribe members are banished into
the technological workforce, where they become “hypnotized by routine,”
like the “half-life things” that Bromden witnesses coming out of
the train while he is on fishing excursions. In the novel’s present
time, Bromden himself ends up semi-catatonic and paranoid, a mechanical
drone who is still able to think and conjecture to some extent on
his own.

McMurphy represents unbridled individuality and free
expression—both intellectual and sexual. One idea presented in this
novel is that a man’s virility is equated with a state of nature,
and the state of civilized society requires that he be desexualized.
But McMurphy battles against letting the oppressive society make
him into a machinelike drone, and he manages to maintain his individuality until
his ultimate objective—bringing this individuality to the others—is
complete. However, when his wildness is provoked one too many times
by Nurse Ratched, he ends up being destroyed by modern society’s
machines of oppression.

The Importance of Expressing Sexuality

It is implied throughout the novel that a healthy expression
of sexuality is a key component of sanity, and that repression of
sexuality leads directly to insanity. Most of the patients have
warped sexual identities because of damaging relationships with
women. Perverted sexual expressions are said to take place in the
ward: the aides supposedly engage in illicit “sex acts” that nobody
witnesses, and on several occasions it is suggested that they rape
patients, such as Taber, with Ratched’s implicit permission, symbolized
by the jar of Vaseline she leaves with them. Add to that the castrating
power of Nurse Ratched, and the ward is left with, as Harding says,
“comical little creatures who can’t even achieve masculinity in
the rabbit world.” Missing from the halls of the mental hospital
are healthy, natural expressions of sexuality between two people.

McMurphy’s bold assertion of his sexuality, symbolized
from the start by his playing cards depicting fifty-two sexual positions,
his pride in having had a voracious fifteen-year-old lover, and
his Moby-Dick boxer shorts, clashes with the sterile and sexless
ward that Nurse Ratched tries to maintain. We learn that McMurphy
first had sex at age ten with a girl perhaps even younger, and that
her dress from that momentous occasion, which inspired him to become a
“dedicated lover,” still hangs outdoors for everyone to see. McMurphy’s
refusal to conform to society mirrors his refusal to desexualize
himself, and the sexuality exuding from his personality is like
a dress waving in the wind like a flag.

McMurphy attempts to cure Billy Bibbit of his stutter
by arranging for him to lose his virginity with Candy. Instead,
Billy gets shamed into suicide by the puritanical Ratched. By the
end of the novel, McMurphy has been beaten into the ground to the
point that he resorts to sexual violence—which had never been a
part of his persona previous to being committed, despite Nurse Pilbow’s fears—by
ripping open Ratched’s uniform.

False Diagnoses of Insanity

McMurphy’s sanity, symbolized by his free laughter, open
sexuality, strength, size, and confidence, stands in contrast to
what Kesey implies, ironically and tragically, is an insane institution.
Nurse Ratched tells another nurse that McMurphy seems to be a manipulator,
just like a former patient, Maxwell Taber. Taber, Bromden explains,
was a “big, griping Acute” who once asked a nurse what kind of medication
he was being given. He was subjected to electroshock treatments
and possibly brain work, which left him docile and unable to think.
The insanity of the institution is foregrounded when a man who asks
a simple question is tortured and rendered inhuman. It is a Catch-22:
only a sane man would question an irrational system, but the act
of questioning means his sanity will inevitably be compromised.

Throughout the novel, the sane actions of men contrast
with the insane actions of the institution. At the end of Part II,
when McMurphy and the patients stage a protest against Nurse Ratched
for not letting them watch the World Series, a sensible request
for which McMurphy generates a sensible solution, she loses control
and, as Bromden notes, looks as crazy as they do. Moreover, Kesey
encourages the reader to consider the value of alternative states
of perception, which some people also might consider crazy. For
instance, Bromden’s hallucinations about hidden machinery may seem
crazy, but in actuality they reveal his insight into the hospital’s
insidious power over the patients.

In addition, when the patients go on the fishing excursion
they discover that mental illness can have an aspect of power in
that they can intimidate the station attendants with their insanity.
Harding gives Hitler as an example in discussing Ratched, suggesting
that she, like Hitler, is a psychopath who has discovered how to
use her insanity to her advantage. Bromden, at one point, thinks
to himself, “You’re making sense, old man, a sense of your own.
You’re not crazy the way they think.” “[C]razy the way they think,”
however, is all that matters in this hospital. The authority figures
decide who is sane and who is insane, and by deciding it, they make
it reality.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Invisibility

Many important elements in the novel are either hidden
from view or invisible. For example, Bromden tries to be as invisible
as possible. He has achieved this invisibility by pretending not
to understand what is going on around him, so people notice him
less and less. Moreover, he imagines a fog surrounding him that
hides him and keeps him safe. He keeps both his body and his mind
hidden.

Bromden’s hallucinations about hidden machines that control the
patients call attention to the fact that the power over the patients is
usually covert. He imagines that the patients are implanted with tiny
machines that record and control their movements from the inside.
The truth is that Nurse Ratched manages to rule by insinuation,
without ever having to be explicit about her accusations and threats,
so it seems as though the patients themselves have absorbed her
influence—she becomes a sort of twisted conscience.

When McMurphy smashes through the glass window of the Nurses’
Station, his excuse is that the glass was so clean he could not see
it. By smashing it, he reminds the patients that although they cannot
always see Ratched’s or society’s manipulation, it still operates
on them.

The Power of Laughter

The power of laughter resonates throughout the novel.
McMurphy’s laughter is the first genuine laughter heard on the ward
in years. McMurphy’s first inkling that things are strange among
the patients is that none of them are able to laugh; they can only
smile and snicker behind their hands. Bromden remembers a scene
from his childhood when his father and relatives mocked some government
officials, and he realizes how powerful their laughter was: “I forget
sometimes what laughter can do.” For McMurphy, laughter is a potent
defense against society’s insanity, and anyone who cannot laugh
properly has no chance of surviving. By the end of the fishing trip,
Harding, Scanlon, Doctor Spivey, and Sefelt are all finally able
to participate in real, thunderous laughter, a sign of their physical
and psychological recovery.

Real Versus Imagined Size

Bromden describes people by their true size, not merely
their physical size. Kesey implies that when people allow others,
such as governments and institutions, to define their worth, they
can end up far from their natural state. Nurse Ratched’s true size,
for example, is “big as a tractor,” because she is powerful and
unstoppable. Bromden, though he is six feet seven inches tall, feels
much smaller and weaker. He tells McMurphy, “I used to be big, but
not no more.” As for McMurphy, Bromden says he is “broad as Papa
was tall,” and his father was named The Pine That Stands Tallest
on the Mountain. Bromden says his mother was twice the size of he
and his father put together, because she belittled them both so
much. With McMurphy’s help, Bromden is gradually “blown back up
to full size” as he regains his self-esteem, sexuality, and individuality.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent
abstract ideas or concepts.

The Fog Machine

Fog is a phenomenon that clouds our vision of the world.
In this novel, fogs symbolize a lack of insight and an escape from
reality. When Bromden starts to slip away from reality, because
of his medication or out of fear, he hallucinates fog drifting into
the ward. He imagines that there are hidden fog machines in the
vents and that they are controlled by the staff. Although it can
be frightening at times, Bromden considers the fog to be a safe
place; he can hide in it and ignore reality. Beyond what it means
for Bromden, the fog represents the state of mind that Ratched imposes
on the patients with her strict, mind-numbing routines and humiliating
treatment. When McMurphy arrives, he drags all the patients out
of the fog.

McMurphy’s Boxer Shorts

McMurphy’s boxer shorts are black satin with a pattern
of white whales with red eyes. A literature major gave them to him,
saying that McMurphy is himself a symbol. The shorts, of course,
are also highly symbolic. First, the white whales call to mind Moby-Dick, one
of the most potent symbols in American literature. One common interpretation
of Moby-Dick is that the whale is a phallic symbol, which obviously
suggests McMurphy’s blatant sexuality—the little white whales cover
McMurphy’s underwear, which he gleefully reveals to Nurse Ratched.
Moby-Dick also represents the pervasive evil that inspires Ahab’s
obsessive, futile pursuit. Here, the implication is that McMurphy
is to Ratched as Moby-Dick is to Ahab. A third interpretation is
that Moby-Dick stands for the power of nature, signifying McMurphy’s
untamed nature that conflicts with the controlled institution. Also,
in Melville’s novel Moby-Dick is associated with God, which resonates
with McMurphy’s role as a Christ figure. Finally, the whale boxer
shorts poke fun at academia and its elaborate interpretations of
symbols.

The Electroshock Therapy Table

The electroshock therapy table is explicitly associated
with crucifixion. It is shaped like a cross, with straps across
the wrists and over the head. Moreover, the table performs a function
similar to the public crucifixions of Roman times. Ellis, Ruckly,
and Taber—Acutes whose lives were destroyed by electroshock therapy—serve as
public examples of what happens to those who rebel against the ruling
powers. Ellis makes the reference explicit: he is actually nailed
to the wall. This foreshadows that McMurphy, who is associated with
Christ images, will be sacrificed.

To weaken the structure of such an (intricate) attack on a borderline genius and his family 1st you must be more committed than more than 5 minds at play. You must do whatever it takes to luir you (snails) out of hiding you cowards are what entertains me. Now that you and I both know undeniably the web I woven has drawn you all into a trap, as the structure colapses on all of you. If you can heed warnings and believe mis information note that this is a game of chess, so to speak. And you hiding in the night served as a darker place for me t